In the spirit of Tony Bourdain, food as adventure. Try everything twice in case it was made wrong the first time. Eat without fear or prejudice.
We decided instead of having dessert at Huaca Pucllana, we'd walk across the street and get coffee and a sweet at La Bodega de la Trattoria. Apparently this is the more casual outpost of a restaurant La Trattoria that is owned by a popular Peruvian TV cooking star. The coffee was excellent, and we share a Cinco Leches cake -- in addition to the milk, condensed milk, and evaporated milk of the traditional Tres Leches, this version added coconut milk and dulce de leche. 
I can't remember where I read about this place, but it sounded so amazing, we had to go. Set next to pre-Incan ruins right in the middle of Lima, Huaca Pucllana is truly an experience. You walk up a cobbled walk to a colonial mansion next to the ruins, and if you're lucky enough to be seated ont he veranda, you are literally in the setting pictured above. We didn't have a reservation, but the hostess and wait staff were very cordial and accomodating. We sat in a comfortable bar area eating corn nuts and perusing the menu until a table freed up outside.
For his starter, Redneckhunter chose the crab croquettes served in a shot of corn cream. He was hoping for a crab version of the ham croquettes from Amada that just burst in your mouth, little balls of delicious juiciness -- but these sadly weren't as good. Fun presentation though.
My appetizer was much better -- a corn cake topped with beef and mushroom ragout. The corn cake was smooth and creamy.
I got the Creole Style Chupe, typical Peruvian crab chowder, served with corn, lima beans, cheese and topped with a fried egg. The broth was wondefully flavorful. It reminded me of a high-end version of the Costa Rican sopa marinera at our place in Trenton.
The first of several posts of our honeymoon culinary adventures in Peru. So one of the things that pushed Peru over for us as a honeymoon destination was that Lima was called The Next Great Food City by Bon Appetit magazine.
We flew in to Lima at 6:30 am, took a harrowing taxi ride across town to our hotel, checked in, took a nap and a shower, then head out for lunch. Our first stop was Pescados Capitales in the seaside Miraflores neighborhood. Our friend Debbie had given us the meal as a wedding present. The restaurant also had been mentioned in the NY Times 36 Hours in Lima. The title of the restaurant is a play on words. In Spanish, "pescados" means fish, and "pecados" means sins, so everything on the menu is based around the 7 deadly sins.
Our first dish was a "Pecaito" a minor sin -- Conchitas a la Chalaca -- scallops in the shell with chopped red onion, new peas, lime juice, and chili.
Because it was a hot dish, they actually brought our appetizer out last. Redneckhunter loves the made up pseudo-Polynesian/Asian finger food known as Crab Rangoon, so when he saw these Tequenos on the menu, he wanted them -- Fried wonton wrappers stuffed with shrimp. The photo doesn't convey just how large these things were - we're not talking bite-size - each was about 4 inches long!
I just had to share this awesome photo from Debbie of the carnage from our wedding...
Redneckhunter and I were flying out from JFK for our honeymoon, so we got up to Queens early to avoid NYC rush hour traffic. So with some time to kill we decided to start our trip with a mini food safari (after all parts of Brooklyn and Queens almost feel like foreign countries - all the Cyrillic seen in Brighton Beach, Indian in Jackson Heights - hell, Edison, NJ is a foreign country!)
For brunch after our girls night, me and the last 2 ladies standing went to Parc, Stephen Starr's new French bistro in the old Bleu location on Rittenhouse Square. It's a great replica - right down to the woven chairs on the sidewalk and the Edith Piaf on the sound system.
Then still in my soft egg and polenta mode from dinner the night before, I ordered it again for breakfast -- 2 poached eggs, with rapini and red peppers on top of creamy polenta.
My friend got steak and eggs -- a petite filet with 2 sunny side up eggs, mornay sauce, and a side salad. My other friend got pancakes with blueberry compote and maple syrup.
More recap of the past couple months... the girls took me to a couple of great places during my bachelorette weekend. Dinner Saturday night was at Osteria, Marc Vetri's second restaurant in Philadelphia.
We started out with the antipasto, served on a huge wooden plank in the middle of the table. Kim and I were in the same mindset of craving soft-cooked egg, so we also got the "ciareghi" house made cotechino sausage with polenta and sunny-side up egg.
I got the gemelli with sweetbreads, asparagus and parmigiano. The other girls also got other delicious looking pasta dishes.
Sorry for the lack of posts as of late... but we'll try to make up for the spring. On our last girls shopping day, petiteseour and I ate at Le Grainne Cafe in Chelsea. She's a big fan of the Oeuf Mason, a poached egg on a goat cheese potato cake with ratatouille. It's the perfect comfort food -- all the rich flavors melding together. I had a savory crepe with merguez sausage and red peppers. The coffee is also excellent, and that day we had not one, but two, celeb sightings...
Le Grainne Cafe
